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The purpose of the Manizales-Mas case is to show the inner workings of the first three years of a comprehensive economic development project that uses entrepreneurship-extraordinary company growth -as the driving wedge. The BEEP project started in 2010 with a contact by the general director, Ana Maria Gonzales, of the Luker Foundation, a non-profit foundation established by the local Restrepo family that owns Casa Luker, which had focused on education promotion since its inception in 1995. Gonzales approached Babson and BEEP, who together conducted a two-month pilot. Between 2010 and 2012 Gonzales worked hard to coalesce a group of funders and stakeholders to back the project, both financially and in terms of non-financial involvement. Having created a consensus among 11 local organizations, Gonzales then negotiated the project with Babson, yielding numerous conflicts and misunderstandings. Marcela Escobar was hired in late 2011 as project team leader, and conducted the project from that time onward, during Phases 2-3. The case takes place as Phase 3 is transitioning to Phase 4, with several acute problems, such as conflict among the stakeholders and an important staff member, the director of communications, who has just announced her resignation.

The automobile industry' s high costs of entry, economies of scale, and network effects from distribution, fueling, and service lead many to conclude that new entrants have no chance. Tesla Motors has overcome many barriers to pioneer electric cars. Starting with partnerships and a minimum viable product, Tesla is working to innovate and scale up. Tesla now produces a top-selling luxury car and has a market capitalization twice that of Fiat Chrysler and half that of General Motors or Ford. Tesla has shown that a startup can enter and disrupt the status quo in one of the most established industries.

The co-founders/consultants at Maynard Leigh Associates (MLA), an HR consulting firm based in the United Kingdom and India, are in a quandary about how to respond to a couple of ethical dilemmas. In the first case, a client has hired MLA to deliver a series of workshops to a group of employees who clearly do not need any help of this kind, and the workshop facilitator feels the client is wasting its money. In the second case, the CEO of a local IT giant has hired MLA to host a workshop that would brainstorm ways to eradicate all roadblocks to his organization’s success, but during the delivery of this workshop, the consultants realized that the biggest roadblock to the organization’s success was the CEO himself. Should the partners be open with the client about their findings and risk damaging a lucrative business relationship, or should they simply remain silent on the subject and pocket their fee. What would be the impact of their decision on the future of their company? Importantly, they need to make a decision that upholds MLA’s corporate values.

By January 2015, Whistle Sports, a multi-platform sports network for millennials, had attracted over 54 million online subscribers on Youtube, Instagram, Twitter, Facebook, Google+, and Vine. It established partnerships with several professional sports leagues and amassed 225 partner channels on YouTube. Its revenue was largely generated through advertisements featured on YouTube. Whistle Sports recently announced that it raised $32 million in Series B financing, enough to bring the company into 2016. John West (MBA 1995), founder and CEO, wondered how the company should allocate its resources over the next year in order to become profitable and ensure future growth.

Matthew Bellows founded Yesware, a Boston-based tech startup, to solve a problem that he'd encountered as a Sales Manager: sales people hate entering data, rarely do it accurately, and almost always input data that can't be synthesized in a way that is useful for the manager. Together with a friend, he developed software to solve this problem-while also working towards the goal of founding a company that would be "the best place to work." But as the company grows past $5m in annual revenue, Bellows faces challenges balancing the dual goals of continuing to scale the company and adhering to the values established for the company.

George Washington is perhaps the most well-known of the U.S.'s founding fathers because of his political and military achievements. However, Washington also operated a number of successful business ventures out of his Mount Vernon estate, and he became a landowner on the American frontier. Washington's life and career serve as a lens for understanding the development of the early American economy. Washington was entrepreneurial both economically and politically. He played a central role in helping to structure the new country's national government and developed a number of precedents as the country's first executive.

In November 2013, with less than 10 months of cash on hand, Tom Leung, the founder and CEO of Yabbly, must decide where to focus his resources. His startup, a question and answer application for shopping decisions, had benefited from a strong showing at the SXSW Accelerator competition and had a dedicated and engaged user base. However, Leung knew that the current growth trajectory would not lead them to the milestones needed to receive an additional round of financing. Leung must decide whether to continue pursuing user acquisition experiments, explore other product ideas, or begin searching for a potential acquirer to achieve a "soft landing" for his team and his investors.

A nascent women’s apparel online store on Tmall, China's largest business-to-consumer retail platform operated by Alibaba Group, was just beginning to establish itself on the online market utilizing the tools and services provided by Tmall to develop and operate its business. Within four months after the business was launched, Tmall unexpectedly released a new policy which significantly increased the annual service fee and cash deposit for individual stores. This new policy, which was to come into effect in less than three months following the announcement, could render the business of small- and medium-sized e-commerce stores, such as the new women’s apparel start-up, on Tmall unprofitable. The management team of the fledgling clothing business had to reconsider whether to renew their contract with Tmall or transfer their store to one of the alternative online platforms, such as Alibaba Group's Taobao Marketplace, Tencent Group’s Shop.QQ or Amazon.com’s Amazon.cn.

Cookie Man, an Australian bakery chain, ventured into India in 2000 with the unique promise of providing “freshly baked premium cookies” on the spot. Opening with a manufacturing unit and its first outlet in Chennai, Tamil Nadu, it bought raw materials and most of its packaging locally and used a local refrigerated trucking firm to distribute its goods. By 2015, it was operating 70 company-owned and franchised stores in newly designed malls and high fashion streets in 25 cities across the country. Increasing competition, a move by competitors towards Internet distribution, and the changing tastes of consumers have hurt the financial health of the brand, and some drastic and quick strategic choices need to be made. Should the company grow horizontally and open more stores in India and/or expand into neighbouring countries? Should it look at new channels of delivery or new offerings? What is the right path for survival and growth?

This case profiles the journey of protagonist Tim Harkness through his many entrepreneurial pursuits. It chronicles his early career and how a bout of serendipity landed him a job in the life sciences tools industry. From there, Harkness went on to lead another life sciences tools company, and transformed the company from an under-performing venture-backed start-up to a profitable multi-product firm. After four acquisitions, a failed sales process, and filing for IPO, Harkness eventually sold the firm for a record multiple for the industry. Shortly after the sale, the firm's new acquirers fired Harkness. This was devastating for Harkness, but before long he was already planning his next business venture. Harkness planned to have the new enterprise replicate the strategy he had employed successfully in the previous two companies he worked for. However, after one of his investors pulled out, he struggled to find replacements for the unique business concept. He began to question whether this was the right time to pursue this endeavor.

The founder and owner of YU Ranch is selling all of the Texas Longhorn beef the ranch can produce. YU Ranch's grass-fed, sustainable beef is substantially leaner and healthier than conventionally produced beef. This highly differentiated product is sold at a premium to selected restaurants, food service companies and at the farm-gate. The local consumer segment has been tapped, while local businesses and distant customers need to be supplied. With the farm operating over its current capacity, expansion is inevitable but extremely expensive. What are the best ways to acquire new land, grow new business and leverage YU Ranch's core competencies — brand and reputation?

Case A, the subject of this particular teaching note, traces Gazi's personal and business journey, and contains ample material to evaluate Gazi as a person, as an entrepreneur, and as a leader. Ostensibly, the case issue is the degree to which Gazi should now scale up from the approx. €10 million of current revenues, but this issue is best set aside until the B case discussion. In fact, the B case includes substantial bottom-up information from each of Gazi's key managers allowing this scale-up question to be tackled from both top-down and bottom-up perspectives. The A case raises much more the question what does it take to be a successful and exemplary entrepreneur, and how, when, and from where such capacities are acquired. The case lends itself not only to a detailed discussion of Gazi's entrepreneurial capacities and their origins, but also prompts participants to ask themselves to which degree they themselves exhibit such capacities, and whether they can and should embark on an entrepreneurial career.

The Gazi B case focuses on two issues: First, it provides a bottom-up perspective on each of Gazi's main lines of business, namely, the Avis/Budget car rental and other vehicle and leasing businesses, in-bound tourism, outbound tourism and ticketing, conference and event business, and cruise ship landings. Detailed plans are presented for each of these business lines and can be contrasted with plans and figures presented in the A case which provided a top-down perspective. The two perspectives remain far apart. Gazi's top-down vision is to have overall company revenues of €100 million within five years; bottom-up estimates range from €50 million overall downwards. The case invites a debate of how to reconcile these two disparate perspectives. It allows students to understand that the real issue behind these disparate growth goals is to decide first and foremost on the overall corporate business definition and scope, and whether the previous pattern of continuous diversification is sustainable in the long run. Also worth debating is whether Gazi's focus on top line revenue growth, and on employee projections, should not be tempered by a parallel concern for the bottom line, for example profitability. The second in the B case is to decide on a possible brand name to replace Albanian Experience for the incoming tourism and conference business. This existing brand's credibility and utility has been overtaken by a substantial de-facto expansion of tourism destinations to include virtually all of the Balkan area, Greece to the south and parts of Italy to the north, as well as destinations in Central and Eastern Europe (CEE). Although the corporate scope and focus issue and the branding issue appear to be separate, they are of course related. A new brand name must be found which if possible reflects the overall business scope as well as the new tourist sources, destinations, and USPs.

Ostensibly there are two issues to be resolved: How to organize for the future, and the future roles and responsibilities of Gazi himself as the organization embarks on its next step of substantial growth. The larger issue behind these apparent issues is how to find the right balance in the future between the two extremes of a top-down strongly led, fast, entrepreneurial organization (as at present), and the growing need to institutionalize and decentralize the organization with both strategy and leadership pushed to levels below Gazi-all the while retaining an entrepreneurial culture and speed. Such new balances go beyond organizational structure and involve processes, systems, culture, people, and leadership. All are open for discussion in the C case.

AyurVAID is a chain of Ayurveda (traditional Hindu medicine) hospitals founded by Rajiv Vasudevan, who moved to entrepreneurship after 16 years in the corporate sector and identified Ayurveda’s potential for root-cause diagnosis. AyurVAID provides Ayurveda-based healthcare to treat non-communicable diseases and chronic diseases, which together comprise two-thirds of the Indian healthcare market. Ayurveda’s system of root-cause diagnosis and subsequent disease management results in no side effects, but most Ayurveda companies are content to operate in the wellness sector and to provide Ayurvedic formulations in the over-the-counter consumer market. AyurVAID hospitals are positioned differently, catering to people with lifestyle diseases and offering long-term solutions to many chronic diseases. Over a period of 10 years, AyurvVAID’s approach has led to rapid growth for the hospitals; however, the founder and chief executive officer wants to identify the most appropriate strategy for AyurVAID. Should it focus on strengthening its position as a multi-specialty hospital, or should it explore specializing in India’s large and growing market for the treatment of diabetes?

NTL Lemnis, a joint venture between NTL Electronics of India and Lemnis Lighting of the Netherlands, has ambitious sales targets and is considering entry into the business-to-consumer (B2C) segment. The company aims to offer energy-efficient LED products to Indian and international markets under the globally acclaimed Lemnis brand Pharox. Top management is planning a sales force structure for the consumer market and is analyzing the design of a sales force in the context of generalist and specialist structures. It is pondering the recruitment and selection strategies at NTL Lemnis so that it can hire a best-in-class sales force. What is the proper size of the sales team? Apprehensions about the effective distribution model to use to increase the reach of the company’s products also persist.